You Should (Never) Meet Your Heroes
by midnightjen
Summary: When Trubel called asking for help there was no way she could say no. What young Grimm (in their right mind) would turn down the chance to meet Nick Burkhardt? Takes places before You Can Never Go Home Again and a number of years after 9 Tails of Seduction.
**a/n:** This is a weird one, a little darker than i was intending when i set out but i think it works. Thank you so much for your continued support for this series! I love hearing your thoughts and so of course i'd love to hear what you think of this one.

 **You Should (Never) Meet Your Heroes**

She'd heard a lot of things about him, like a lot of things. He's a legend, the one they told stories about, the one they all aspire to be like. Every Grimm she'd met since she started working with HW and Trubel had asked her if she'd gotten the chance to meet him yet. They want to know if Trubel had let anything slip, if the only Grimm in their network to meet him had finally shared the truth behind the stories.

Because it couldn't really be true, it isn't possible for one man, even a Grimm, to bring down something as big as Black Claw. Grimms are good but even they aren't that good. And to be responsible for the destruction of Hadrian's Wall as well? There were just so many things wrong with the stories coming out of Portland that she was pretty sure Trubel hated it that people knew she knew _him._ Even if she secretly loved it because how could she not?

Eleanor Swartz grew up hearing the rumours and the stories, never quite believing any of them. She was fourteen when she learned who she was and six years ago the stories she was hearing were just unsubstantiated rumours about beheadings and sticking it to the Royals. The more involved she became in the fight against Black Claw, the more she found herself trapped in the tangled web of lies and subterfuge that HW was becoming, the more she started to believe the rumours.

Before HW fell, it had been easy to pretend that someone out there was fighting the good fight without getting tangled up in HW. She had to believe it because she, like all of the other Grimms she'd heard talking in whispers and rumours, needed a way to believe that could be them again one day.

Somewhere along the way she'd started to _believe_.

So when Trubel had sent out a call for help and she'd actually been the closest one to Portland she'd jumped at the chance to go and help. What if she met _him_? What if the help Trubel needed was for _him_? What if when she rocked up in Portland it wasn't just Trubel waiting to greet her but _Nick freaking Burkhardt_ as well?

How many Grimms across the world would believe her when she told them she'd been in Portland fighting beside Nick Burkhardt?!

And okay, maybe she was fangirling a little (a lot) but since her mom had first told her about how her father really died and she'd been given a crash course in all things Grimm and wesen every turn she'd taken, every new thing she'd learned, had been tinged with the whispers of the Portland Grimm.

It was easier to develop an uncomfortable level of hero-worship than try and compete – hence the fangirling. It had taken a lot of time and effort to prove herself in the community and she was starting to make a name for herself amongst the younger Grimms but she wanted to one day become a legend in her own right. She wanted to be the source of fear and terror in the wesen community he was. She wanted the rumours and stories being spread amongst the other Grimms to be about her.

Meeting Nick Burkhardt could only help set her on that path. It could only help to boost her own reputation being one of the younger generation helping the Portland Grimm.

It was early evening when she crossed into Portland and she debated whether or not to check into her motel before or after she met up with Trubel. The address she'd been given was for a local business, a strange place, she'd thought, for a meeting but maybe it was a front? Since HW went down there wasn't that steady source of income coming in, she couldn't blame Trubel for taking a job to help make ends meet. Back home she waited tables at a bar to help pay for her needs – she'd blown all of her HW pay on college tuition, something she was more and more grateful for every time she had to deal with some asshole too drunk to know better.

Curiosity won out and she made for the shop first. As she drove through the dark streets, she mused on what she actually knew of Portland outside of the rumours. Everyone knew it was where Black Claw had fallen and where HW had been disbanded but nobody was clear on the details. About the only facts that had been confirmed were those two things and that Nick Burkhardt was the Portland Grimm tied to both of them.

Oh, and the fact that Trubel was the only other Grimm who'd been in Portland at the time and knew anything close to the real story.

Anything else about the Royal families, about wesen and reapers were just rumours, nothing that could be substantiated and certainly nothing that Trubel had been willing to confirm. When she'd first reached out to all of the Grimms HW had been using, she hadn't wanted to say much more than that Black Claw and HW were gone and that Nick Burkhardt had been a part of it.

They'd all stayed in contact (as best they could) and, as these things do, rumours had started spreading. This one Grimm up in Toronto had overheard two eisbiber's talking about the uprising and everything had sort of snowballed from there. Nobody really knew anything for sure, or if they did they weren't talking.

In a way, that just made it all the more exciting and a little intimidating. She was about to meet the Grimm who had been there for it all. The one who had helped kill so many Royals the power struggles had all but ground to a halt. This was the same Grimm who was rumoured to have torn through what was left of the Resistance and walked right into the heart of the Black Forest in search of the Grimm treasure.

She found the shop easy enough, and managed to score a pretty sweet parking space right out front when a red SUV pulled out just as she was approaching. She would never admit it to anyone but she totally checked her reflection in the vanity mirror to make sure her hair and make-up were all still perfect and she took a couple extra seconds when she got out of the car to make sure her jeans were sitting right and her boots were laced. She zipped her jacket up over her cleavage, figuring that having her boobs on display wouldn't really sell the right image of a badass Grimm.

She wanted to be taken seriously not treated like some little kid. She was younger than Trubel had been when she'd first arrived in Portland but she had the advantage of actually knowing what she was and what she was capable of.

How was it everyone knew the truth about Trubel's past and the story of how she'd learned about her heritage but everything else about her time in Portland was shielded by a big question mark?

Double-checking she had two knives on her and the collapsible baton that was her go-to weapon of choice, she finally approached the door to the shop and knocked on the glass above the sign that read closed.

The man who lifted the blind to peer out at her was tall and he frowned at her in confusion a split second before something in him recognised something in her and he woged. Later, she would blame all of her training for what happened next.

Her hand reached for her baton as behind the door the blutbad reached for the lock. The instant the lock clicked, she kicked out with her booted foot, sending the door slamming into him and knocking him back. He snarled at her but didn't make a move to attack. She took advantage and struck out with her baton, aiming for his side.

Movement out of the corner of her eye distracted her and then a hand grabbed her own and twisted. She cried out in pain, the grip far stronger than she was expecting and twisted around, both to try and get away and to get a look at who was attacking her.

Was Trubel in danger? Was this some sort of set-up? She kicked out but whoever had grabbed her arm trapped her foot with one of their own and spun her around until she was pressed face first into the wall beside the door.

'Okay, ow,' the blutbad complained, rubbing his face where she'd kicked the door into him. She watched him sharply out of the corner of her eye but he didn't seem to be in any hurry to attack her. Someone else moved then, a tiny blonde darting into the fray to scoop her baton off the floor where she'd dropped it in pain.

'Oh.' It was a kid, Eleanor realised, a young girl judging by the voice and disappointment. 'It's not even electrified.'

'Diana,' the tone was exasperated, the voice belonging to the man pinning her to the door. 'Aren't you supposed to be watching your brother?'

Eleanor didn't like the way she'd seemingly been forgotten but that didn't stop her from trying to use the distraction this Diana had provided. She tried to move but the man pinning her shoved her hard against the door without any apparent effort.

'Kelly's boring,' Diana announced. 'All he wants to do is play with that stupid game Trubel got him.'

Eleanor froze, Trubel's name falling from the girl's lips with such familiarity was completely unexpected and her reaction didn't go unnoticed by the man pinning her to the door because after what seemed a moment of deep consideration he spun her around and frowned down at her.

'You're the Grimm Trubel sent for.'

It wasn't a question and now that she was looking right at him, she could see he wasn't wesen. He was tall, dark haired and there was a gun at his hip and a badge secured right beside it.

There was a moment where her mind went absolutely blank, like she seriously couldn't process what her brain was seeing because it just didn't make sense. Why was Nick Burkhardt in the same room as a blutbad? Who was the girl? Where was Trubel?

What the hell was going on?!

'She's a Grimm?' repeated the girl who couldn't have been more than eleven. Eleanor glanced at her and the girl woged, tilting her hexenbiest face to study Eleanor carefully. She'd heard that to wesen a Grimm's eyes were an endless, terrifyingly deep, black. This little girl, this Diana, didn't seem the least bit scared of her.

Eleanor on the other hand was fast feeling like any grip she had on what was happening was loosening and soon she'd be floating away on a sea of what-the-fuckery having no idea what she'd just stepped into.

For a Grimm who had always been so sure of what was going on, it was not a nice feeling at all.

'You are Nick Burkhardt, right?' She thought clarifying that little detail might clear things up. Surely this man, this cop, associating with wesen wasn't the Grimm she'd heard so many stories about. That Grimm was known for his violence and a penchant for killing anything that got in his way.

As far as first impressions went, this man before her did not fit a single one of those criteria.

'Yes,' he confirmed who he was and Eleanor had to resist the urge to ask for ID. Nothing she'd just walked in on made any sense and she really wished Trubel was there because she didn't think she'd be able to get her metaphorical balance back until she'd seen a familiar face. 'Its Eleanor, right?'

Unless this really was a trap and they'd gotten a really good actor to fill in for Nick Burkhardt – torturing Trubel for that kind of information – then Eleanor was exactly where she was supposed to be and Nick Burkhardt really was standing in front of her.

It was all just so anticlimactic. Honestly, he was shorter than she'd been expecting, though still taller than her, and she kind of thought he'd be older, like in his fifties at least because it seemed impossible that he could have done all the things he had and still be in his, what, thirties? God, was he even a decade older than her? Did that even count as an older generation Grimm?

And all three of them were looking at her expectantly and she realised that this whole situation had so completely thrown her that she'd just been standing there gawping at them instead of talking like any normal person.

So much for showing him Eleanor the badass Grimm.

'You can't be Nick Burkhardt,' she blurted out, further ruining any chance she had of being that cool awesome ass-kicking woman she'd wanted him to see.

This seemed to amuse the blutbad but it only made Nick Burkhardt frown. 'What?'

'Sorry.' Eleanor held up her hand and took a deep calming breath. When she felt like she was once more in control she said, 'I've heard a lot of things about you and I wasn't exactly expecting to find you surrounded by wesen.'

For some reason this seemed to make him frown even more. Did he find it so surprising that she'd heard about him?

'If you've heard about me, why is that surprising?'

Eleanor blinked at him in astonishment. He wasn't surprised (or confused) to learn she'd heard about him but he _was_ surprised she didn't know he'd be with a blutbad and a hexenbiest? 'What?'

'This conversation is boring,' Diana announced. 'And I'm hungry.'

Eleanor looked at Diana and she wasn't the only one, the blutbad looked at her with amusement but Nick Burkhardt was back to looking exasperated. She didn't much care how they were looking at the girl though, the only thing she cared about was the chance it gave her to get her thoughts in order.

What did he mean she shouldn't be surprised to find him in the company of wesen? Sure he was a Grimm and they spent plenty of time around wesen but it was usually the kind of time that involved pounding out information or lopping off heads. She supposed he could have been meeting with the blutbad for information but Nick Burkhardt hadn't been the one to open the door and that suggested this shop belonged to the blutbad more than the Grimm.

That didn't explain the hexenbiest kid, the talk about games from Trubel or her brother – hadn't they called him Kelly? Seriously where were the kids parents? Did they know she was associating with a blutbad and a Grimm? Because that was the kind of thing she thought wesen parents should be concerned about.

'Mom and Rosalee have gone to get dinner,' Nick freaking Burkhardt reminded the girl like they were just a bunch of friends meeting up for a casual dinner after work ran a little later than planned. 'Go make sure your brother hasn't managed to break into everything. I'm sure by the time you've washed him off they'll be back with food.'

'Fine,' Diana flounced away. 'If he's covered in that weird slime again I'm using my powers on him!' she shouted back over her shoulder and she left the main room of the shop and disappeared into the side room and out of sight.

'He wouldn't be covered in slime if she'd stop leaving him alone,' he muttered under his breath so she wouldn't hear before he shouted after her, 'No powers!'

The blutbad snorted a laugh but Eleanor didn't see what was so funny. When she'd knocked on the shop door she'd expected to walk into some sort of secret meeting where Trubel would be planning to take down some wesen threat. She'd imagined she'd slip in and offer advice when she thought her ideas were better and she imagined that maybe Nick Burkhardt (and she really needed to stop thinking his name in full but could she call him Nick? Burkhardt?) would be there and she'd get to impress him with her knowledge and skills.

She had not imagined a quaint little herbal shop where Nick would be babysitting two wesen children and meeting with a blutbad – for dinner. Honestly, things would have made so much more sense if the blutbad were planning to have him for dinner and she'd merely stumbled across their showdown.

Of course she hadn't because that would be logical and she was finally beginning to understand why people said "that's Portland for you" whenever they talked about the ridiculously high number of wesen related crimes that happened there.

'I'm really confused,' Eleanor eventually said and she hated that she sounded so young and unsure but she didn't think she was going to get any answers if she started swinging and trying to kill things. As much as that would have felt nice right about then.

'Why?' Burkhardt (did Nick work better?) was frowning at her again and she hated that he kept doing that because it made her feel about two inches tall and like she was fourteen again and still only just learning about what it really meant to be a Grimm. Why did he seem to think she should know what she'd walked in on? Why was he looking at her like she was the one not making any sense because she didn't understand why he was standing in a shop clearly not trying to kill the blutbad or beat information out of him?

Although, looking at the blutbad she didn't imagine he'd be all that tough. He was wearing a cardigan for god's sake! What kind of self-respecting blutbad wore a cardigan?

'I thought Trubel needed my help,' Eleanor tried to explain but she didn't think she'd succeeded because those words just really didn't convey how she felt right there witnessing the crazy taking place.

So of course, Nick freaking Burkhardt had to turn everything on its head again (did that mean she was finally right side up and about to grasp reality again?) when he told her, 'Actually I need your help.'

Because weirdness aside, being needed by Nick freaking Burkhardt was all kinds of awesome.

'Oh.' It took her a moment to get her head around that one before she cheerfully asked, 'Cool, what are we killing?'

But nope, things were not that easy because clearly this was Portland, land of the weird, and nothing she'd thought she'd known was true apparently held true in Portland when dealing with Nick Burkhardt.

'No killing,' he assured her. He actually assured her like it was all good that nothing needed killing and wasn't that a relief when the whole fucking reason she'd skipped out on work and was missing a couple of classes was so that she could help Trubel and Nick kill something.

Seriously, what else did you need a Grimm for?

And she'd apparently asked that question aloud because it sure as hell elicited a response. The blutbad – did the guy even have a name? – rolled his eyes and said, 'Great, you're one of those Grimms.'

Nick, well the look he was giving her reminded her of the way her mom sometimes looked at her when she'd promised to do something and then completely failed to do it. It was disappointment; the powerful kind that hit you right in the chest and made your heart shrink and your stomach fall because it meant you'd just let someone really important to you down.

Hero-worship apparently gave your hero the power to wield that look but why the hell should he be looking at her with disappointment? Shouldn't she be the one disappointed? She'd come to Portland expecting to meet the all-powerful Grimm Nick Burkhardt and instead she'd met some pale imitation that seemed to think a day when you didn't kill the wesen problem was a good day.

What the hell kind of Grimm thinking was that?

When he spoke, Nick's voice was hard enough that she thought maybe, somewhere deep down, there was a hint of the Grimm she'd come all this way to meet. 'We don't kill wesen unless we have no choice. Monroe,' and he gestured to the blutbad, 'is my friend.'

'He's what?' There was no emotion in her voice, she'd gone into blank mode where there was just no way she could comprehend what she was hearing. 'He's your friend?'

'I think you broke her,' Monroe mused. 'What has Trubel been telling these guys about you?'

'I have no idea,' Nick grumbled. 'I'm sure as hell going to find out.'

'Mummy says hell is a bad word.' This voice was even younger and male and had the innocence of all young children, the kind that hides the evil mischief until your back is turned. Diana had returned and she'd brought her brother with her. He was resting on her hip looking like he weighed a lot less than he probably did.

While Diana was blonde, willowy, with long legs and a future of being tall and beautiful and probably the kind of girl people would take to judging solely by her looks, her brother was dark haired, dark eyed and a lot younger than her. He was also the spitting image of Nick.

Was it possible to have multiple aneurisms? Maybe she was having a stroke? That had to be the only explanation for what her eyes were seeing.

'Yeah Dad,' Diana laughed, eyes twinkling with mirth. 'Hell is a bad word.'

She could actually feel it, the moment her whole world and everything she'd believed fell apart around her. It was like the crushing of a soul, that constant pang of heartache just pounding away in her chest as all of her hopes and dreams of the future died away. Endless black – and not the kind associated with her eyes – was sucking away at her vision of the future leaving her with nothing but the broken shards of dreams that would never be realised.

All those stories about Nick Burkhardt were nothing but lies. There was no way the Grimm who had taken down Black Claw and Hadrian's Wall, the one who'd rendered the remaining members of the Resistance incapable of starting again, could possibly be the man standing before her with a hexenbiest for a daughter and a blutbad for a friend.

There was a moment where she wanted to cry but she was a Grimm, a proper Grimm, and she would not cry over something as childish as realising the man she'd grown up idealising was nothing but a fraud.

Instead she clenched her jaw, narrowed her eyes, and spat, 'Dad?'

Every exchange between Nick and Diana she'd seen and the way he smiled down at his son had carried warmth but the look he levelled on her at the venom in her voice was so cold and so cruel that she actually flinched and took a step back. He didn't let her expand the distance between them, he took two steps toward her, placing himself between her and his children and locked eyes with her, making sure she understood everything he was about to say was of the utmost importance.

'If you ever touch my children I will kill you.' It was the way he said the words so calmly, so matter of fact, that sent a chill right down to her bones. 'I will make what happened to Petrovitch look like a walk through the park.' She swallowed but couldn't look away. 'Do you understand?'

She didn't know exactly what was happening, didn't know anyone could look so cold or so completely terrifying but she got that what she was seeing was a man protecting his children. It was absolutely 100% the scariest thing she'd ever seen and it sent a thrill down her spine to accompany those chills.

This, this was the Nick Burkhardt she'd come to meet. This was the Grimm she'd been expecting when she walked though the door. She just didn't understand why she was only seeing him now.

Before she could confirm whether or not she understood, the door behind her opened and a resigned voice said. 'Yep, I must be right on time.'

Nick backed away from her at the sound of the newcomer and the cold vanished from his eyes to be replaced by genuine warmth. He grinned at the man who had just come through the door and extended a hand for him to shake. 'Josh,' he greeted, 'thanks for coming.'

Josh shrugged, shaking first Nick's and then Monroe's hand. 'Eh, what's another pint of blood between friends?' Then he turned to the kids. 'What?' he asked. 'No hug?'

'It all depends on whether or not you brought us candy,' Diana informed him in a voice that sounded way too old. 'We're starving.'

'Candy!' Kelly declared like it was the best idea in the world.

'Still got your priorities straight, kid.' But he didn't sound like he disapproved. 'There may be cookies in my bag but only for after dinner.'

Eleanor could only stand helplessly in the corner and watch the scene unfold. Diana seemed to find the offering of cookies after dinner acceptable because she handed her brother over like he was a day old newspaper and reached for Nick. He made a big show of heaving her up and complaining about her getting too big for this kind of thing but she just stuck her tongue out at him.

'Some days,' Nick said to the room at large though he was speaking mostly to Diana, Eleanor assumed, 'you are way too much like your mom.'

'Absolutely lovable?' Josh hadn't closed the door behind him and so Eleanor hadn't heard the two women approach. She hoped no one noticed the way she jumped at the sound of the woman's voice.

'Woo, food!' Diana dropped gracefully from Nick's arms and aimed for her mother. Eleanor could easily see the resemblance.

'Did somebody say food?'

Two men had come inside behind Diana's mother and the other woman who must have been the Rosalee Nick had mentioned earlier. The shop was beginning to get crowded and so by some unspoken agreement they all moved through the next room and down to the basement (Eleanor seemed to get sucked into the flow of people) where shelves lined all of the walls and a huge table stood prominently in the middle of the room. There were a few leather bound books tossed carelessly on the surface of the table which Monroe hastily moved before Rosalee and Diana's mom moved forward and placed a dozen take-out containers and a number of brown paper bags down on it.

'Are we still waiting on Trubel?' one of the men who had followed Rosalee in asked. He was wearing a police uniform and cast a curious look over her when their eyes met.

'She'll be hear any minute,' Josh said. 'I left her having a conversation about body armour with Georgia.'

Eleanor didn't know who this Georgia was and she didn't much care, all she cared about was the knowledge that Trubel was on her way and hopefully she would bring answers and normalcy with her.

And that was not a sentence Eleanor ever expected to think about Theresa Rubel. No one who knew the Grimm would ever expect her to arrive with answers.

'Who's the new girl?' this was from the man who had come in with the cop.

'Eleanor Swartz,' Nick provided. 'She's the Grimm Trubel called in.'

Nick seemed to think it was time for introductions. Rosalee was Monroe's wife (a fuchsbau married to a blutbad?!), Adalind was Nick's wife (Grimm married to a hexenbiest!), Hank and Wu worked with Nick at the station, Josh was the son of a Grimm (not a Grimm himself) and she'd already had the pleasure of meeting Diana and Kelly as well as Monroe.

The introductions might have made it easier to talk to (and about) the people in the room but it did little to make her feel at ease. There was so much going on that she didn't understand and the more she saw and learned the more she worried she'd walked into some sort of trap and these people weren't who they said they were.

And she wished she could believe that.

They didn't seem to think waiting for Trubel was necessary, the kids certainly didn't, and so Eleanor found herself a stranger standing back and observing the chaos of a group of people who clearly knew each other really well, fighting over who got to eat what and who was going to pass the rice.

From a purely observational point of view it was fascinating. She'd seen what real love was supposed to look like between her parents back before her father died. It was evident in every little interaction Monroe and Rosalee had. It was the way she handed him things without him having to ask, the way he easily offered her a napkin when Kelly's antics made her laugh and she spilled noodles on the table.

Nick and Adalind made her sick. They had that same level of ease that Monroe and Rosalee did with the added layer of parental concern. She watched them easily divide and seemingly conquer their children, handing out utensils and food, cutting up an egg roll when needed and helping each other when it became evident that two hands just wasn't enough.

The love they shared, the ease in their interactions was disgusting to her. She hated that she could see it, see that Nick adored Adalind in spite of her wesen nature. She hated that she could see that love reflected back when Adalind looked at him. These two were supposed to be hated enemies but here in the basement of some stupid herbal shop they were just like any other couple in love. They were just like any other parents.

She hated that this ruined her image of Nick Burkhardt. She hated that this went against everything she'd ever been taught, everything she believed about Grimms and wesen. She hated that they just expected her to become a part of it, and that they handed her cartons of food she might like and an empty plate to scoop a serving onto like it was perfectly normal. She hated that Rosalee tried to ask her questions and was friendly.

Most of all, she hated the way Trubel arrived seven minutes later and so easily slid into the friendly and warm chaos like she belonged.

In a way, she felt like a child sulking in the corner because they didn't get their way. She didn't make any effort to become part of the conversation and she knew she was being terse when she answered questions directly asked of her. Being petulant didn't make her feel better and it didn't do anything to change the situation but it seemed like the only response she knew how to make that didn't involve bloodshed.

Realistically, if she did start attacking these people she'd be the one to end up dead. Still, it gave her some measure of comfort during the course of the meal to plot how she would manage it if it really did turn out to be some elaborate trap that Trubel was merely playing along with until the time to break free presented itself.

Adalind would need to go first. She was at the opposite side of the table with her two children separating her from Nick but her powers were a bit of a wild card. Of course, any attack on Adalind would definitely mark her for dead, there was just no way Nick would stand by while his wife was quickly and efficiently murdered.

No matter which way she tried it out in her head, every scenario ended up with her dead. It was only the number of them she took out with her that differed. Idly she wondered if this was how other Grimms thought. Were they always constantly aware of every threat? Did they see danger lurking in every corner? The other Grimms she'd spoken to seemed to, then again they were always getting attacked and finding themselves in situations where they had to kill to survive.

That was definitely a Grimm thing.

At some point while she was plotting each and every one of their murders (she felt a little bad about her plan to take out Trubel but if it came down to her or Trubel there really wasn't a question), the topic around the dinner table had turned to the case Hank and Nick had caught that afternoon. Eleanor didn't see why that was appropriate dinner conversation until the words bloodletting and lunar cycle filtered through her selective deafness.

'The Fed's are trying to take over the case but there's something about this one that just says wesen,' Nick murmured. None of them seemed at all concerned that there was a toddler and an eleven year old in the room. Eleanor supposed when you were the product of such an abomination as the union between a Grimm and a hexenbiest a little thing like murder was the stuff of bedtime stories not nightmares.

She only caught the basics but the case did intrigue her, just not enough to ask any clarifying details. She was still boiling over with anger that the man she looked up to was nothing like she'd been led to believe. Her bitterness at learning Nick Burkhardt was a wesen-loving, peace-making, anti-killing non-Grimm was making it a little hard to see anything else – anything that looked like a bigger picture.

When dinner was finally over and Hank and Nick were bagging up the trash it seemed like some sort of signal. Wu begged off with claims of an early start and Josh used the excuse of travelling all day. Nick and Adalind didn't need an excuse because they had two children to deal with and despite her big attitude, Diana didn't protest when Nick hauled her up into his arms, intent on shuffling his family on home.

They all made plans to meet up the next day and then left like it was some sort of meeting for a club or a social group. Eleanor felt like she should have been packing away folding chairs while drinking the last of some really bad coffee. She'd driven all day expecting a super secret meeting filled with plotting and planning and instead she'd been subjected to what could only be described as a family gathering.

Eleanor had the sharp need to kill something in the hopes that she'd feel better. Knowing as little as she did about Portland, she suspected if she did go out looking for a fight she'd definitely find one but then she'd spend the next 25 to life paying it off when Nick and Hank inevitably caught and charged her.

She wanted so desperately to go back to that innocent girl of just a few hours before and tell her to go back, that it wasn't worth it because the fantasy far outweighed the reality. She had to settle for cornering Trubel the second they were out of the basement.

Unfortunately the confrontation she was expecting didn't go as planned.

'What the hell was that?'

'What was what?' Trubel asked, carefully looking both ways down the street as she stepped out of the shop. Seeing the way Trubel never relaxed her guard was a sharp reminder that Eleanor had completely lost control back there, she'd been so consumed by her confusion and rage she hadn't been keeping an eye on her surroundings.

How had the disappointment of meeting Nick Burkhardt in person so completely eclipsed all of her training and instincts?

'That guy back there, he wasn't really Nick Burkhardt, was he? It was just some kind of joke.'

Trubel, having decided the street was safe enough turned to look at her with a frown. 'Why would you think that?'

Eleanor flung her arms wide in exasperation and said, 'Because he's married to a hexenbiest! They have kids!'

Trubel didn't seem to be getting it. 'Adalind's great.'

'He's friends with a blutbad! And a fuchsbau!' When Trubel still didn't look like she was getting why Eleanor was so mad, she added, 'That's not really the Grimm who took down Black Claw.'

Trubel's eyebrows shot up in surprise – Eleanor suspected it was due to her anger and not what she was actually saying – and she felt her heart sink.

'Is he?'

'Why is that so hard to believe?' Trubel wanted to know.

Eleanor opened her mouth to explain, remembered the terror he'd managed to instil in her with just a look and some very coldly spoken words and shut it again. That man, that brief glimpse of the Grimm lurking beneath the father, could definitely have done all those things she'd heard about in the stories but it was just a glimpse, nothing more than a fleeting moment that honestly she was beginning to doubt had been anything more than just bad lighting and her imagination.

'Its,' she hesitated, not really having any other way to put into words just why it was so wrong other than, 'it's not normal.'

Trubel actually snorted at that. 'Why would anyone want to be normal?'

Eleanor didn't have a response to that. Wasn't that what everyone wanted to be? Normal? Maybe it was those few months before she'd gotten up the courage to tell her mom what she was seeing but to Eleanor normal was kind of important. Being a Grimm was her normal, which, sure, might not actually be that normal for anyone else but it sure as hell wasn't making friends with wesen and marrying them.

Hadn't they learned from Black Claw and HW? Didn't they just prove that wesen and normal people shouldn't mix?

Needless to say, Eleanor didn't get much sleep that night. She was almost grateful for the unexpected wake-up call she got around 5am. Actually it was kind of expected, it was the kind of call for the kind of meeting she'd been expecting to have the day before.

In fact, her first full day in Portland started out so normally she started to wonder if maybe she hadn't just dreamed the whole crazy thing. Nick Burkhardt was a badass Grimm, that's what the stories said and after helping Trubel chase a murderous hundjager around Portland all day, Eleanor was willing to believe things weren't really as they'd seemed the night before.

There were things she didn't know, things Trubel hadn't wanted to tell her. Maybe everything she'd seen in that cosy little basement wasn't all it had appeared? Grimm's could be patient, right? Nick could be pulling some sort of long con?

The plan had been to meet up at the shop again but it seemed like the hundjager she and Trubel were chasing around wasn't the only thing happening in Portland. Hank and Nick's case had turned out to definitely be wesen and so instead of heading back to that weird little tea shop she and Trubel ended up in the middle of the woods using the GPS on Trubel's phone to try and find Nick and Hank who were also traipsing through the woods in search of their ritual performing murderer.

'Does this happen a lot?' she asked in a hushed whisper, trying not to let on that her teeth were chattering from cold and she was pretty sure there was more than just mud covering her boots.

'What?' Trubel called back over her shoulder, not bothering to lower her voice. She didn't seem the least bit concerned they were stalking into the woods in the dark and the rain to try and find some wesen that had already killed thirty-four people across the country.

Or maybe it had been forty-three? Eleanor was really wishing she'd been listening the night before when Nick and Hank had been talking about their new case.

'Do you always get dragged into helping Nick with his cases?' It just seemed strange to Eleanor that a Grimm as tough as Nick would always be relying on the help of a less experienced Grimm like Trubel. It did not bode well for the truth behind all those stories. The more time she spent in Portland, the more she was beginning to believe they were really just stories.

Alright, maybe she was seesawing back and forth on that one but she still wanted to believe Nick was a badass Grimm it was just that after an hour of trudging through wilderness she felt like maybe conceding her hero wasn't all he claimed to be seemed a reasonable reaction.

The Nick Burkhardt of those stories wouldn't need another Grimm's help. He wouldn't need the help of a hexenbiest or a blutbad either. He was supposed to be a force of his own, that kind of power and strength didn't need help.

Ahead of her, Trubel shrugged her shoulders. 'I dunno, I guess. It's mostly just when I'm in Portland.'

From the rumours coming out of the Grimm network that wasn't too often anymore but it still felt like Eleanor was missing something. And she still didn't even know why Trubel had called her in the first place.

'He's not what I was expecting,' she said finally. Admitting to Trubel (in the dark woods) what she'd been thinking was a lot easier than having a face-to-face conversation.

'There are a lot of things you don't know about Nick,' Trubel said simply. 'And a lot of things you don't know about being a Grimm.'

What was that supposed to mean?

Eleanor thought she was doing a pretty damn good job of being a Grimm. She had one of the highest kill counts of any Grimm she knew. She always got the job done and she'd never once left behind a trail the police could follow. That is if they ever felt the need to. So far, it seemed like the police were happy to stop looking when their lead suspect in an investigation turned up dead. Usually surrounded by incriminating evidence.

Sometimes, though, when she felt like getting creative, she made them disappear completely.

'You should spend some time with Nick and the others,' Trubel informed her. 'You might learn something.'

There was something Trubel wasn't saying, something in her words Eleanor gathered she was supposed to be able to read but either the clue she was supposed to be reading had been swallowed up in the night or she was simply too sleep deprived and reading a whole lot into nothing.

'I'm not sure he could teach me anything I don't already know about being a Grimm.'

Trubel stopped then and turned to face her, giving Eleanor a clear look at her face for the first time since they'd started this conversation. She wasn't sure she liked the look on Trubel's face because it told her she was definitely missing some deeper meaning to Trubel's words.

Worse still, was the knowledge that Trubel wanted her to understand but also wasn't about to make it easy on her.

'You'd be surprised,' was what Trubel said but it wasn't what she'd meant. They weren't the words she'd wanted to say.

Wondering what the hell that was supposed to mean, Eleanor stomped passed Trubel, intending to lead the way. She hadn't gone more than a dozen steps when she realised that would be kind of hard without the coordinates Nick had sent Trubel. Refusing to be embarrassed about having to stop and wait for Trubel to catch up, Eleanor kept her eyes straight ahead, straining to see anything lurking out in the darkness.

She though she saw movement in the trees to her left but when she whipped around there was nothing there. Trubel, passing right by her, didn't seem to notice. She started to follow after the Grimm when she caught the same movement.

'Something's out there.' She hissed the warning only seconds before something big and heavy lunged at her, knocking her to the ground. Something else whizzed over her head and then a high-pitched terrified scream tore through the air.

The thing pinning her to the ground rolled away and she realised it had been Monroe. He'd tackled her to the ground just in time to save her from being impaled on a spear. The long lethal weapon was firmly imbedded in the tree beside them, exactly where her head had been.

The blutbad had just saved her life. She felt kind of dirty.

'You're welcome,' Monroe snapped when she turned away from him without a word.

She nearly emitted a terrified shriek of her own when she found herself face to face with Adalind. The blonde mother of two (and husband to the Grimm who'd turned out to be such a disappointment) tilted her head and grinned. Whatever she'd been about to say was cut off by another terrified scream.

'Damnit.'

Adalind and Monroe took off running in the direction of the scream and Eleanor realised she was completely alone. Trubel had simply disappeared. Not getting lost in the woods seemed like a great idea so with no other choice, she took off through the trees after Monroe and Adalind in search of the scream.

A short time later, breath coming in quick gasps, she burst into a clearing and ground to a surprised stop.

That single killer the FBI had been tracking was actually seven. Their latest victim was hanging upside down from a rope and dangling over a circle created from shells and stones on the damp earth. She was unconscious, which was probably a good thing, given how all the blood was rushing to her head. She was also surrounded by chaos.

They'd only been seconds ahead of her but already Monroe and Adalind were right in the middle of things. Hank stood just outside the circle fending off some sort of reptilian wesen Eleanor had never seen before while Wu tried to get close enough to free the victim. Monroe was using teeth and claw and doing a pretty decent job of tearing the throat out of one of the reptile guys. It was kind of gross but she'd seen worse. Of the seven, two of them were already down, she didn't know if they were dead or just unconscious but they weren't currently a problem.

Trubel was on the far side of the clearing struggling with a wesen twice her size who seemed to be taking a great deal of enjoyment from batting away her strikes. It didn't look like it was taking much effort on his part but in her defence Trubel wasn't backing down. She could probably have used a hand, though getting through the fight to help her might have been a little tricky.

Not that it mattered. As she calculated her best chance of getting across to help, Nick and Adalind stumbled back into the clearing, dragging behind them two more men. Neither of them looked to be dead but they didn't exactly look healthy either. Adalind flicked a hand carelessly at the giant wesen Trubel was struggling with and a branch whipped from the ground, soared through the air and slammed into his back knocking him forward and directly onto the kick Trubel had been lining up.

Eleanor heard the crunching of cartilage from clear across the clearing.

Nick dropped the man he was dragging and dove for one of the women Hank was trying to beat back. Adalind took the other. What happened next was fast, it was vicious and it was every bit the darkness she'd been expecting the night before. Nick didn't hold back in his attack and neither did Adalind. Individually, Eleanor imagined they were powerful scary, together they were terrifying.

There was a brutality to their actions but it wasn't dragged out. It was swift, efficient and kind of beautiful in a creepy I'm a Grimm so this is my life kind of way.

For a moment, just a moment, she could almost see why working with a hexenbiest might be an acceptable idea. Then Adalind woged into the creepy corpselike mien of a hexenbiest and Eleanor reconsidered.

How the hell could Nick stand to even look at that?

It was over before she'd fully comprehended what was happening. Soon she found herself standing on the edge of the clearing watching the smooth transition each of them underwent from violent blutbad/hexenbiest/Grimm to perfectly ordinary. It was as though now that the violence was done there was no need for cruel words or even weapons.

Monroe moved to help Nick and Trubel line all of the reptilian wesen up in a row face down on the ground and then Adalind moved in and secured their hands behind their backs. Most of them were unconscious but they were wesen so no telling how long that would last. Hank called it in to dispatch and ordered an ambulance while Wu finally got the girl down.

It was just as quick and efficient as the violence of just moments before and that almost made it scarier. These people could go from fighting for their lives and tearing through the flesh of violent wesen to calmly and carefully arresting them.

'This is when we leave,' Trubel announced. 'We can't be here when the rest of the cops arrive.'

Eleanor could only nod and follow as Trubel led the way back through the woods to where they'd left her car. Monroe and Adalind were right behind her. It made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up but she managed not to shudder in revulsion.

She didn't really know what to think about what she'd seen. She may have caught a glimpse of the Nick she'd heard about in the stories but she'd also gotten a good look at how he did things. She didn't know what to make of it. Back home she didn't have a boss or the law to answer to. When she saw a wesen making trouble she killed it. If there was something bigger going on sooner or later more wesen turned up and she killed them too.

There wasn't this element of the law, wasn't this process of solving a crime and stopping the bad guy. Since HW fell apart, things had gone back to how they were before the wesen uprising. She'd become the kind of Grimm her ancestors had been, she'd done the kind of work they'd done.

It was how things were done. You saw a wesen you killed it, you moved on. Or, well, in her case you snuck back inside and checked on the next table.

What she'd seen back there in the clearing though, it hadn't been about the death and ridding the world of something evil, it had been about justice and making sure the people responsible were held accountable for their actions.

What the hell kind of work for a Grimm was that?

Before she knew it, they were out of the woods and back at the cars. That red SUV she'd scored that sweet parking spot from evidently belonged to Adalind. She and Monroe didn't waste time with pleasantries, Eleanor supposed when this was your normal day, there wasn't much point in wasting time with something as simple as a goodnight.

And there was that word again: normal.

What did she even really know about normal? She was a Grimm, her idea of normal was really different to her best friend Caleb's who still didn't know anything about Grimm's or wesen or where she disappeared to sometimes when they were supposed to be hanging out. Her idea of normal was different even to her mother's and she knew about this kind of thing.

Her head was starting to pound and she felt kind of sick. If Trubel noticed she didn't say anything. In fact, neither of them spoke until Trubel pulled up in front of her motel room and killed the engine.

'Is that how they always do things here?' Eleanor eventually broke the silence to ask. 'Do they always arrest people and solve the crime?'

Trubel looked at her and this time Eleanor could have sworn there was an approving look in the other Grimm's eyes. Trubel was way too young to be looking at her like that, it was weird.

'Most of the time that's how they learn about these problems,' Trubel explained. 'Others it will be when someone approaches Monroe or Rosalee or even Adalind for help.'

'Someone?' Eleanor repeated. 'You mean wesen? Wesen actually approach them for Nick's help?'

Trubel gripped the steering wheel, tightened and then flexed her hands around the leather. 'You have to understand, it's not just Nick. It's all of them. Not all wesen are bad Eleanor, some of them are just trying to live their lives.'

Those words stayed with Eleanor all night and though she finally got in some decent sleep she was still thinking about them when she woke up the next morning. Trubel had been trying to tell her something with those words, it was the pointed way she'd said them and the sharp way she'd maintained eye contact.

She might have evenually figured it out if she hadn't gone back to the shop the next day, intentionally getting there a full hour before Trubel was supposed to be meeting her. Rosalee and Adalind were the only ones in the shop. The two of them were in the side room brewing up something nasty in a cauldron.

Any other time she'd probably have laughed over the sight of a witch stirring a cauldron but this whole trip had thrown her off and so she didn't even make a snide remark.

'Hello,' Rosalee greeted her warmly, if a little cautiously. 'You're here early.'

In the face of the kind smile on the fuchsbau's face, Eleanor felt a surprising twinge of guilt. The whole reason she'd shown up early was because she'd hoped that in doing so she would catch the woman doing something that might explain all that she had seen. Perhaps the concoction in the cauldron would help with that.

'What are you making?' she asked, moving to peer down at its contents. Inside the cauldron was what looked like murky brown water. It looked disgusting, true, but mostly it just looked like tea.

'It's a tea to help Josh's wife with her morning sickness,' Rosalee explained. 'Georgia has it really bad and the doctor's are a little worried she's not putting on enough weight.'

Her pounding in her head ratcheted up about a hundred notches and Eleanor once again felt her stomach lurch. She hadn't known these people more than a couple of days but she'd known Trubel for years, she was one of the first Grimm's Eleanor had ever met after HW approached her. She trusted Trubel with her life so why was she having such a hard time trusting these people?

It wasn't like she hadn't had her worldview completely scrambled once before. Becoming a Grimm had taken a lot of getting used to and then what with that whole thing with HW and Black Claw, she should be used to things happening that didn't make sense. Why had it been so easy to accept the things HW wanted of her, the things they'd made her do and the people and wesen they'd made her work with, when she couldn't accept what she was seeing in front of her?

Because it didn't matter whether she liked it or not, it didn't matter what she thought at all. This wasn't her life; this was Nick Burkhardt's and Trubel's and their friends and family. It had nothing to do with her, not really, so why the hell had the realisation that Nick wasn't anything like the stories shaken her so deeply? It wasn't like the revelations didn't make her look even more the badass Grimm.

Why had Trubel even asked her to come when clearly they didn't need help with any wesen problems? Because they kind of had that covered without her help. She wanted to ask them why they were helping Nick, wanted to ask how a blutbad came to love a fuchsbau or even how one became friends with a Grimm. She wanted to ask how Adalind could love someone who was supposed to be her mortal enemy but the words wouldn't come.

Instead she played along, she asked, 'Can I help?'

They didn't ask her questions, didn't push her to talk and she hated it. She hated how genuinely nice they were and how it didn't fit with everything she'd been taught to believe about wesen. She wanted them to push, wanted them to make her uncomfortable so she'd have an excuse to lash out. She knew how to hurt wesen, she didn't know how to pretend to like them.

It didn't really take long to make the tea and then they moved onto something else. Something so complicated it had about a million different ingredients that they measured out so precisely just looking at them squinting at line in the measuring jug made her eyes water. They didn't let her help with this one and when she asked what it was for Adalind got a pained look on her face.

'Its for Diana.'

Eleanor didn't ask anything more, apparently her mother's lessons had stuck enough that she didn't pry but she guessed that Diana was sick and that this was supposed to help. The kid hadn't looked sick but what did Eleanor know about hexenbiests – aside from how to kill them.

There was no Hank or Wu this time, but Josh arrived shortly after Nick and Trubel looking a little bit queasy but resolved. 'Let's just get this over with,' he said making Trubel laugh at him.

'Get what over with?' Eleanor asked.

'This is why I called you,' Trubel explained, gesturing to the cauldron that was emitting a foul looking thick grey steam.

'What? The potion for Diana?'

'You told her already?' Trubel asked Adalind with surprise.

'Of course not,' Adalind snapped. 'She's your friend. I don't really want any Grimm I don't know near my children.'

That seemed like the first reasonable thing Adalind had said in the entire time Eleanor had been in Portland.

'We need some of you blood,' Trubel said. 'It's to help Diana.'

Eleanor blinked. 'My blood?'

'The second dose requires blood of the enemy and blood born of the enemy,' Rosalee explained.

'Enemy?' Eleanor didn't understand.

'It's to permanently suppress the hexenbiest,' Adalind finally said in a low sad voice. 'We already gave her the first dose but that only required the blood of her blood and a single Grimm.'

'For the second dose, for it to be permanent, we need the blood of the enemy and that born of the enemy,' Rosalee elaborated.

'Not to mention a whole bunch of other really gross things I regret ever asking about,' Josh put in, if possible he looked even paler than he had when he'd walked in.

Now Eleanor was really confused. Why would they want to suppress Diana's hexenbiest if they were all so happy to work together, uncaring of who was what?

'Why would you want to do this to your daughter?'

'Because I want to be normal.'

Eleanor whipped around. She hadn't even known Diana was in the shop, she must have been playing down in the basement with Kelly again but now she was once more standing before all of them. This time Kelly stood beside her, pudgy hand clasped tightly in his big sister's so he wouldn't fall over.

'I did some thing I'm not proud of,' Adalind said in a quiet voice stained with guilt and regret. 'But I want my daughter to have a real chance at life, I want to her to have all of the things her brother's going to have.'

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask what on earth Adalind could have done but Eleanor couldn't make her mouth shape the words. It wasn't really any of her business what Adalind had done or why she wanted to undo it, only that she did and they apparently needed her blood to do it.

If they'd asked her that first night when she'd walked in to the store she'd have flatly refused, gotten back in her car and driven straight home again. But she'd seen a lot of things in the last two days; she'd had her whole view of the world tilted very roughly sideways and so instead she took the time to actually consider it.

She knew Trubel; she trusted the Grimm and she wanted to trust Nick. She wanted to believe that he could be trusted that despite what she'd seen (and who he was married to) he really was the man from the stories, the one who had taken down Black Claw and HW, the one who had rained destruction down on the Royals.

Trubel could see the struggle she was going through because her expression hardened and she said quite sharply, 'Do you know why I wanted you to do it? Why I called you and not Donner who's up in Seattle visiting his grandmother?'

Eleanor hadn't known Donner was so close, she'd kind of just assumed she'd been the best shot Trubel had at help. She'd assumed it was kind of urgent. She shook her head and Trubel went on.

'I called you because you're the only Grimm I know who could actually be called the enemy.'

The words hit Eleanor hard and she jerked back in surprise, the words painful and sharp and hitting so closely to her heart that they couldn't help being a little true. Trubel saw her as the enemy? 'What?' she gasped.

'We wanted to give Diana the best chance at growing up like a normal hexenbiest and so when we were looking for another Grimm to give us the blood of the enemy I called the only Grimm I know who kills indiscriminately.'

'I – what?'

Trubel took a step toward her and her next words were spat, sharp and bitter and full of something Eleanor had only seen a hint of in the car the night before. 'You have to stop, Eleanor, this was a test, a chance to see if you could change before we stepped in. You think you're this badass Grimm, Eleanor, but you're doing more harm to the title than anyone in centuries.

'I brought you here to show you the good a Grimm working alongside wesen can do. I was like you once,' she added quietly. 'Nick showed me I didn't have to kill every wesen I came across. He showed me all the good that can come of working with the wesen not only against them.'

'But - '

'Enough.' The word was spoken calmly and without any real anger but it cut through Eleanor's aborted protest and Trubel's angry words as easily as a hot knife through butter.

'Nick,' Trubel began but he silenced her with a sharp wave of his hand.

He raised a hand and pointed a finger directly at her and Eleanor gulped. He had that scary look back in his eyes. 'I will hunt down every scrap of evidence there is and make you pay for all the innocent lives you've taken,' he informed her. 'Or I can simply kill you and stop you that way. If you don't make the choice to stop yourself.'

Had he always known why Trubel had asked _her_ to come? Had Nick Burkhardt, the Grimm she'd hero-worshipped known exactly who and what she was before she'd burst in on him just a few nights ago? Had it all really been a trap? Had Trubel orchestrated this whole thing as some sort of intervention?

Did the other Grimms know about this?

Eleanor wanted to cry, she wanted to rage, she wanted to lash out and hurt the people who were hurting her because she wasn't a monster, she wasn't the bad guy, she was a Grimm and she was doing what Grimm's were supposed to do.

Wasn't she?

Grimms were supposed to kill wesen, they were supposed to stop the bad guys and that's what she did. Just because HW didn't pay her, just because they weren't around to give her targets didn't means he couldn't carry on the work of a Grimm.

Because she had been doing that. Wesen weren't people, not really. This whole thing, this whole thing had been a set up to get her to play nice. It was a manipulation, a plan. It was a trap Trubel had set up all because they were too afraid to be what their ancestors were.

All because they were too afraid to be what she was.

She'd been wrong to idealise Nick Burkhardt, he was nothing but a fraud, she was the real thing, she was the real Grimm in this room, it didn't mater what a bunch of wesen and some wesen-loving Grimms thought of her.

Finally clear on all that had happened and everything she'd seen, she made the split second decision to act. She lunged for Nick, hand reaching for the knife on her hip. She never made it. Some force took hold of her and pinned her in place, legs frozen in a lunge, one arm outstretched. She couldn't moved anything but her head and when she turned it to the side she could see Adalind, hand outstretched and a snarl on her hexenbiest face holding her in place with her powers.

Trubel looked disappointed but she didn't look surprised. None of them did. Carefully, Rosalee pried the knife out of her stiff fingers and then Eleanor found her body moving of its own accord until her outstretched arm was over the cauldron. There was no hesitation when Rosalee used her own knife to slice open a deep cut on her arm.

It hurt but Eleanor refused to scream. She raged, struggled, but no matter what she did she could not break free of Adalind's hold. As hard as she tried her legs just refused to move, her arm refused to drag itself away from the cauldron. They were getting what they wanted from her and there was nothing she could do to stop them.

With that thought came the cold realisation that she could die right there in that room and these people wouldn't care. Not really. This was her punishment; to them this was justice for all the wesen she had killed. This was payback for all those "innocent" lives she'd apparently taken.

'That's enough,' Rosalee murmured, her eyes on the steady drip of blood splashing into the cauldron.

Trubel stepped forward, raised her hand palm facing upward and blew a powder into Eleanor's face. 'I'm sorry.'

As much as she tried she couldn't stop from inhaling some of the powder and so this time she did scream. She felt the power holding her back snap and she surged forward only to stagger back as the powder took affect.

'What,' she gasped, clutching at her chest and the sudden pounding of her heart. 'What did you do to me?'

'What Meisner should have done.'

Her limbs started to feel heavy and she realised perhaps too late that these people were perfectly capable of killing her. Fear like she'd never felt before engulfed her along with the darkness.

It was probably why it was such a surprise to wake up.

It shouldn't have surprised her where she did wake up. Locked in a cell in a nut house like she was some crazy psycho and not a powerful Grimm.

The hysterical laughter when she woke up and realised what had happened likely hadn't helped her cause. When she'd calmed down enough to think rationally she knew they'd have to come for her eventually. She wasn't crazy and she wasn't a murderer they could just lock away. She was a Grimm and she'd been doing what Grimms were supposed to do.

She played along with the doctors and pretended to feel bad for all she'd done. In some ways, she supposed she did feel guilty. There were some things she did regret.

But Eleanor Swartz was a badass Grimm and she would not apologise for doing what she was born to do.

Maybe that was why they never came for her.


End file.
